Hitler Gay?

[Richard Romeo]

food for thought....rich

Hitler was gay - and killed to hide it, book says

Kate Connolly in Berlin
Sunday October 7, 2001
The Observer

Adolf Hitler was gay - or so says a sensational new biography on the Nazi 
dictator due to be published tomorrow.
Eyewitness accounts from Hitler's former lovers, and historical documents 
that for the first time illuminate rumours that have circulated for over 
half a century, are disclosed in Hitler's Secret: The Double Life of a 
Dictator .

The respected German historian Lothar Machtan even claims in his book that 
Hitler ordered the deaths of several high-ranking Nazis to prevent the 
secret of his homosexuality from surfacing.

Ernst Röhm, the leader of Hitler's Sturm Abteilung or Storm Troopers, tried 
to blackmail Hitler by threatening to reveal his sexuality. Röhm, who was 
also gay, was murdered as a result, according to Machtan, a history teacher 
at Bremen University.

He refers to scores of historical documents to support his thesis. In 1915, 
the young Hitler was a dispatch rider at the front in France. Years later, 
yet before Hitler became infamous, one of his fellow soldiers, Hans Mend, 
wrote in his memoirs: 'At night, Hitler lay with Schmidl, his male whore.' 
Schmidl, otherwise known as Ernst Schmidt, and Hitler were 'inseparable 
lovers' for five years, according to Machtan.

Hitler's service notes read that as a result of the love affair there was 
reluctance among senior officers to promote him. According to Erich 
Ebermeier, a lawyer and writer who viewed Hitler's military files years 
later: 'Despite his bravery towards the enemy, because of his homosexual 
activity he lost out on a promotion to non-commissioned officer.'

Police reports from Munich after the First World War also suggest that 
Hitler was pursued by police because of his sexual orientation. 'As a 
"brown" [fascist] activist, Hitler managed to lure many young men to his 
side, but not only for political reasons,' says Machtan.

According to a Munich police protocol from the early part of the 20th 
century, a 22-year-old man called Joseph told the police: 'I spent the whole 
night with him.' Another, Michael, who was 18, told them: 'I had been 
unemployed for months, and my mother and my brother were always hungry, so, 
at his request, I accompanied the man to his home.' Another, a boy called 
Franz, said: 'He asked me if I'd like to stay with him and he told me his 
name was Adolf Hitler.'

The police reports were collected by Otto von Lossow, a German army general 
who took part in suppressing the Hitler putsch in 1923. He kept the Munich 
police file for years, as, he described it, 'a form of personal life 
insurance'. If Hitler had attempted to push him aside, he would have 
blackmailed him with the information, he said. The police documents were 
published some years ago in Rome by Eugen Dollmann, a close friend of 
Heinrich Himmler's and also Hitler's interpreter. But because his book never 
appeared in German, the startling information remained largely overlooked by 
historians.

Machtan says that Hitler was particularly drawn to Rudolf Hess, his deputy, 
who was known in party circles as 'black Emma' and with whom he had spent 
months in Landsberg prison.

Why, then, did the Nazis persecute homosexuals, sending hundreds of 
thousands of them to their deaths in labour camps and the gas chambers?

'Hitler himself never condemned homosexuality, but he allowed the 
persecution of gays in order to disguise his own true colours,' Machtan 
says.






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